Chinaware

Another significant influence foreigners had on Japanese culinary history is the substantial development of chinawares produced by the Korean potters brought back to Japan after Japan’s assault on Korea in 1592. The Korean potters were extremely ahead of their time in pottery technology and helped to found the basis of Japan’s pottery industry. It was the Koreans who first succeeded in making the Japanese porcelain at Arita, now a world-famous name for pottery.

China instead of metal soon became fashionable for serving food and Japan subsequently became one of the greatest china-manufacturing countries in the world, producing such exquisite and diverse chinas as Bizen, Hagi, Imari, Karatsu, Kutani, Mashiko, Mino and Seto, to name but a few. Glassware also made its way to Japan at around the same time.